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Amelia Buzzard's avatar

Thank you for this. I have deep sympathy for men who seek to support their family and use their talents for God's kingdom in a world that opposes both. It's rough. That people are willing to pay big bucks for materialistic and soulless “content” and political gossip but not for beautiful poetry and soul-care is a travesty. People put their treasure where their heart is, and by that test, America definitely serves Mammon.

In addition to Wendell Berry, I recommend perusing Dorothy Sayers' essay “Why Work?” She writes in the wake of WWII urging people to think of work in terms of the objective goodness it produces, instead of in terms of its monetary value. She rightly insists that “Unless we do not change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice.” As writers, there's nothing we want more than to produce quality with our words. The tragedy is that the world often passes up quality work to wallow in its own filth. The system's broken. Ugh.

Although the system is broken, I hope God uses business owners and other economically influential Christians to create bright spots of reform, in the spirit of Isaiah 58, "to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke." Why else are we here than to resist the principalities of this present darkness? And this essay is part of that resistance. It looks like the Spirit has alchemized even your less-than-fulfilling job into a brick for God's kingdom.

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Benjamin Chua's avatar

Thank you for writing this. I think you've touched on a deep ache, in my soul at least. Somewhat ironically, part of my job as a freelance writer requires me to write blogs for a financial planner, so I have been exposed to much of the content and thinking you allude to. Most of it never goes deeper than the assumption that money and the goals it allows you to reach are good, just because (typically, buying a house, saving for retirement, etc.). And a lot of that has to do with, like you said, this grim, materialistic idea of "security."

Absent is any talk of meaning or purpose beyond self-serving ends (as much as that content might try to dress things up with the propagandistic language of "family," "the American Dream," etc.). My frustration is that of course people need access to basic living (survival) but surely there must be more than that? And even if you accept that idea has some merit, surely there must come a point at which survival/security cannot be your primary or only rationale?

That seems to me an affront towards Jesus command to, "Seek first the Kingdom and righteousness, and everything else will be added to you as well." It seems we have got it backwards: start with security/survival, then maybe worry about a greater purpose later. I'm sorry, but it sounds more like we're sitting at the feet of Rabbi Maslow than Rabbi Jesus at that point (or Rabbi Ramsey, for that matter).

And let me be clear: I don't think any one individual is to blame for that, either. Where is the teaching in that vacuum on how to do what Jesus asks us to? The teaching that emphasises serving others, caring for the poor, finding meaning in the other-oriented Gospel of the Kingdom? And, more importantly, where is that teaching in a contextualized sense? Contextualized to the workplace, I mean.

If the best we can offer is, "Silently read your Bible in a quasi-public space." Then our culture is doomed. Faithful Christians will either replace Jesus with the false god of security or they will (wrongly) assume that the only way to fill the ache in their soul is to enter "full-time ministry" (another phrase that makes me feel ill).

As I have thought, prayed and wrestled with this tension, I have found that the only way out for me is to listen daily, weekly, monthly to the still, small voice of the Father, revealed in Jesus, by the Spirit, for direction and guidance. The hints and whispers that come from those times have led to a very different life than I expected when I left university.

All of which is to say: thank you for writing this and sharing it here. I appreciate you speaking into the void, especially from a fellow Pittsburgh-adjacent resident! (My wife and I live on the other side of the city).

And as an aside, one book that has opened my eyes to the cognitive dissonance between Western Christianity and the Gospel of the Kingdom is Douglas Meeks' "God the Economist." If you haven't read it, I highly, highly recommend it.

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